


but you've never stopped running

by Rachelle_Lo



Series: you didn't always wear a mask, but you've never stopped running [2]
Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Acts of Kindness, Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Study, Clay | Dream-centric (Video Blogging RPF), Cottagecore, Descent into Madness, Eldritch Dream, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Escape, Family, Gen, Hallucinations, Healing, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Torture, Imprisonment, Inhuman Dream, Nonhuman Dream, Prison, Psychological Trauma, Reconciliation, Solitude, Threats of Violence, Unreliable Narrator, Villain Clay | Dream (Video Blogging RPF), and the eldritch abomination spores and necromancy rituals, bring on the cottagecore fluff, complicated villain dream, dream is not defanged yet there is human connection and understanding eventually, empathy is not apology
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-14 15:41:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29544633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rachelle_Lo/pseuds/Rachelle_Lo
Summary: Humans only have enough energy for three regenerations within a short time before their bodies give out permanently. The recovery grace period can be anywhere from a few months to two years, depending on the soul’s strength. Part of the horror is the uncertainty of whether a third death is actually the third and final.Dream’s never found his limit.(It’s been thirty-eight days, and no one has asked you to bring the dead to life.)--Or: A highly unstable, volatile, dangerous Dream escapes from the prison and builds a cottagecore life amidst his necromancy plans.
Relationships: Clay | Dream & GeorgeNotFound & Sapnap (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream & GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream & Ranboo (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream & Sam | Awesamdude
Series: you didn't always wear a mask, but you've never stopped running [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2174055
Comments: 31
Kudos: 221





	but you've never stopped running

**Author's Note:**

> the spiritual successor to 'you didn't always wear a mask.' this work addresses themes of the cycle of abuse, violent escalation, aftermath of violence, and coping mechanisms. heaviness aside, i hope you enjoy!

Humans are afraid because their bodies are frail. You’ve learned this. They need to lie down every night and stay still for hours, and they need to eat every day.

They only have enough energy for three regenerations within a short time before their bodies give out permanently. The grace period for the body to recover can be anywhere from a few months to two years, depending on how weak in body and soul they are. Part of the horror is the uncertainty of whether a third death is actually the third and final. 

You’re not human. You hardly ever need to close your eyes and disconnect your mind at night, and your body isn’t satisfied by the same foods the others eat. You don’t know exactly _what_ you are, but you know what you’re not. 

(The teeth jutting from your arms and stomach might also be a dead giveaway.)

You don’t die. Humans only have three lives, but you’ve never found your limit. ( _A lie—you’ve come dangerously close, years and years ago—)_ You’re not weak. ( _You’ll never beg again.)_

You are not human, and you are _not weak._

***

It’s been four days.

The mechanisms click repeatedly overhead, and the veil of lava begin to descend. There’s a visitor. You don’t know who because there’s no way to talk to anyone outside of Pandora’s Box.

Engrained habit makes you look around the cell to see if you need to clean up for a visitor. _Really?_ you laugh to yourself. _There’s nothing to clean._ You’ve always been careful about your appearance, though. It’s part of the mask’s appeal.

Minutes later, the lava veil drops. It’s Punz.

Nerves clench up your stomach. You shouldn’t doubt, but you do—where do you stand with Punz?

Punz looks at you inscrutably. “Does anyone watch or listen to these visits?”

You shake your head. The islanded cell is too far out to be overheard unless they shout.

Lines appear on Punz’s face. “You’re an idiot,” he snaps. “You’re an _idiot._ ” He says much worse, punctuating each with swearing. 

The tension in your stomach loosens with each insult.

“You almost _died,_ Dream. What could possibly be worth that? You’re so stupid. And what the _hell_ were you doing to those kids? Traumatizing them? Hurting them? The whole server was about to let you die for that.” Punz paces, voice rough with controlled fury. “Well?”

“I’m impressed you managed to unite most of the server,” you say. 

“It’s not hard when they all hate your _stupid_ guts.”

You wheeze despite yourself. “Yeah.”

Punz stops pacing and folds his arms. He studies you, the cell, the low ceiling and the black walls. The combat specialist can’t see your face, but you knows he can read the small tells in your body language from years of sparring. What does he see?

“Would you have killed them?” Punz asks.

It’s—a razor down your insides, the guilt that suddenly spawns, as you remember Tubbo’s eyes, filled with resignation, and Tommy, crying. You remember thinking _you’ve crossed a line_ and feeling it pass through your fingers, but you were too far in at that point and you couldn’t stop and maybe they’d _think for once_ about what _was_ and _wasn’t_ dying for. People? Friends? Yes, but bringing your friend to fight for _discs_ and _things_ and _pointless attachments_ …and having the nerve to _hesitate when given the choice between them…_

And—well, if you use that razor to cut to the core of it—you’ve always enjoyed a feeling of control, and of talking and being heard.

And it all compounded and compounded until you snapped, feeling, feeling—nothing. That’s what pushed you off the edge that night. The plan _had_ been to threaten to lock both of them away until the server arrived, but you changed it at the last minute. Your control had snapped in a dizzying rush, like falling off a cliff you didn't know existed.

You’ve lost control of yourself twice. Once on that obsidian wall, and once in your obsidian pit.

 _(You don’t know if you actually would have followed through in killing Tubbo, in that moment. You were uncontrollable. Numb. Unhinged and disconnected from everything.)_

Well, now they’ll have time to recover. They weren’t seriously hurt, just cut a bit and leaving with a better grasp of their own mortality. They’d be fine, with time. A scare (or a scar) was sometimes the best teacher—you’d learned that growing up.

 _And,_ you reassure yourself, _if you had slipped, you know you can bring the dead back._

“Of course not,” you tell Punz.

“You’ve killed a lot of people before. It’s easy for you.”

You roll your eyes to break the tension. “You’re one to talk, mercenary,” you say playfully, using Punz’s self-proclaimed title, earned from his work on many servers, then drop the smile from your voice. “A hit to the heart’s an easy respawn, you know that. Nearly painless.”

He stares at you with an expression you can’t quite decipher. 

Are you being too flippant? You sober your tone. You can’t afford to alienate Punz. “Everyone’s okay?”

“Yeah. Surprisingly.”

“Good. Good.”

“ _Good?”_ Punz swears, walking forward and grabbing your shoulder with strong fingers. “You’re such a bastard. This is so damn stupid. You’ve traumatized some kids, hardened everyone, and for what?”

“I think you’re underestimating the power of trauma-bonding,” you say wryly. “And human hatred.” (You did. You did not expect to be spawn-killed over and over and begging for life. But, you suppose, you of all people can understand snapping points.)

“You think these bonds are going to last? Peacetime doesn’t stay,” Punz says. He would know, considering his profession and reputation on various servers.

“I think you’ll be surprised,” you reply. You briefly curl your fingers around Punz’s wrist on your shoulder, as comfort or warning you can’t tell, and Punz immediately lets go. 

Punz crosses his arms, and the anger seems to fade into something harder, calmer. Eyes narrowed, he asks, “ _Can_ you bring the dead back to life?”

“Would I say otherwise at this point?” You rest your head on your knee, smiling.

“Not with me, Dream,” Punz warns. _Don’t pull the act on me._ “Can you?”

“Pets, at least.”

Punz swears softly. He stares at you, and the clock ticks on. Pale skin, pale hair—it’s easy to see the blue circles below his eyes and the bruises on his hands. He looks tired, more tired than you’ve ever seen him. _What have you done to this server? What have we all done to each other?_

“I’m glad you visited,” you say softly.

“I’m leaving,” Punz says. “A few weeks. After this—all this.”

You nod. That’s good. That’s fine, though you’ll miss the prospect of Punz’s visits. But it’s a few weeks. A few months, maybe. You’ll be fine. You can handle this even if your only ally doesn’t visit.

Punz is, first and foremost, a good mercenary, which makes him the most trustworthy. He has principles outside of friendship and fragile favor. Once he decides to take a contract, he keeps and finishes it.

“Dream, you bastard,” Punz says, eyes tight, “you should have paid me more for this.” 

***

Eleven days.

The entire server believes that you’re on your third life, as it would be for any other on the server, and it’s true, in a way. It’s your third, but not final, life.

You’re not sure how _many_ lives you have, but past experience says you can survive much, much more than you should. You’re not interested in finding the limit.

_“If you don’t do it, I’ll just kill you.”_

It’s been the constant threat for the past few weeks. You’re not afraid of losing your third life—the bitter fear is for the moment when your former friends will look you in the eye and decide with cold precision that you need to be put down like a mad dog. When you’re no longer useful.

It’s going to happen.

Whether after you revive the dead or when some faction needs a scapegoat. Whether they decide to execute you with a trial or kill all memory of you by sentencing you to isolation.

You’re not human, or hybrid, and _you_ know this, and they don’t—but they’ve seen you as less than that for a long time now. A faceless mask. A heartless manipulator. Someone dangerous and uncontrollable.

 _But that’s what they are,_ you say to your clock. _Dangerous. Uncontrollable. I wouldn’t have had to go so far otherwise._

***

You really don’t understand. You know it’s not _kind_ , what you did, but you’ve been through worse. You thought you were being lenient.

It was like a timeout. Finally, some real consequences for Tommy’s actions. You gave him several chances, and trials, and warnings. He lied, and swore, and tried to threaten you. ( _He tried to threaten you—of course you’d retaliate harder.)_ When he was exiled, you let anyone visit.

You didn’t keep him in a cage. You let him walk around free—you _told_ him he could move places if he wanted. You checked to make sure he had food, and weapons, and shelter. It's a far sight more than you ever had. 

_Stomach cramps and you have no idea how long you've been in here and your body's eating itself_ _—_

Yes, making him drop his weapons and armor everyday wasn’t _nice,_ but it was discipline. It made him behave better. It gave him something to do.

_There’s not much room to move besides stretching to relieve some of the stiffness and if you move too much it'll draw attention—_

You let everyone visit. (Not all of them at once for that beach party, of course—they’d probably turn against you and decide to bring him back with that many people together. Crowds were dangerous.)

He hated you for killing him twice (which was fair)—but both were in sanctioned warfare: once in a war they’d declared, and once in a duel they’d agreed to. It wasn’t like you’d spawn-trapped them all, caging in their location and _slashing at your inhuman face each time you’d just come back to life hoping you’d stay dead—_

Not the worst that could happen. 

Tommy got to talk to people. He was just _stupid,_ and he didn’t learn anything. Why didn’t he learn anything? It worked with you, after all. You didn’t turn out too bad.

There are far worse things out there than big bad Dream and his obsidian walls. There are far worse things to lose than discs.

And yes, Tommy didn’t handle it as well as you expected, and that surprised you, that a few weeks of living in the woods was enough to turn that little gremlin hysterical. Maybe you did feel bad when you saw him trying not to cry, later, shaking at the sight of you, swearing weakly. But a quiet part of you scoffed in disbelief: _that’s all it took?_

***

It’s been twelve days and you’re _not_ writing that novel for Tommy, thank you.

***

This prison will not break you. You know this. It may wear you thin, but you can handle it. You’ve done this before, and _that, then,_ was far worse. Here, you get food, and books to write in, and space to move.

But one thing you realize is that past memories can’t inoculate you against present pain. Memories you thought you’d forgotten creep back.

The raw potatoes— as you prefer, not baked— aren’t enough to keep your strength up, but you refuse to ask Sam for raw meat. You’re not that type of monster.

Though you do nothing you get so, so tired. You sleep—or you think it’s sleep—without meaning to, and it terrifies you the first time you wake and you’re in a different position than you remember. People, humans, lie down and close their eyes at night, but you never have needed to sleep unless you’re sick, and despite the drama of it you’re scared of the feeling of brushing death when your mind slips away. Your mind is your weapon, your entertainment, and your solace, and having it glitch on you triggers a deep-set fear.

Because yes, you’re a monster for what you’ve done, etc., hurting the frail humans around you that you love, but you’re not _insane._ And you can’t be going insane.

You’re numb, and you’re bored, and you’re sleeping for the first time in years, but you’re not going insane. You’d know.

***

When Bad comes, you sit up and take notice. He smells strange. Like deep caves, but not the dust-scent of deep mining—the scent is like rotting vegetation, something sharp and sickly sweet.

Despite the smell, he’s so painfully optimistic, so Bad, it’s endearing.

“What’s your sentence? How long do you have?”

“Forever.”

“Well…forever’s not that long!” His audible wince almost startles a laugh out of you. _Really, Bad?_

He promises to advocate on your behalf and get plants, a definitive sentence, something. He doesn’t, and he doesn’t come back.

***

Sapnap visits.

You can’t hate him, and that’s what’s always made this difficult. He started so many wars and provoked so many senseless fights that you tried to mediate for, protect him, and yet he looks at you and says _you deserve to be here._

You fake bravado. It’s what he expects, isn’t it? Stubborn, brilliant, determined, _villainous_ Dream.

“If you escape, it won’t be Techno or Tommy who kills you,” he says calmly, with conviction. “I’ll be the one to take your final life.”

See—this? This is why attachments are useless.

You underline _eventually_ and toss the book at him, turning away as he leaves.

***

It’s been thirteen days, and you’ve had four visitors if you include Sam.

It’s not difficult to figure out what each visitor wants. Mostly it seems to be satisfaction. They’re all seeking different reactions, and you give it to them, mostly.

Apologies. Humiliation. Humility. Tough stubbornness. Easy enough to feign. Sometimes you slip in some obvious manipulation that makes them immediately wary. It’s fun. Entertaining, you should say, or objectively interesting—it’s not really fun. It shouldn’t be fun.

Only a few visitors ever made the effort to submit to all of Sam’s protocols. The few visitors that came did so in the first week.

***

Seventeen days. 

You’re disappointed in yourself, because you’re already starting to crack. You’ve lasted longer than this in the _before,_ haven’t you? And under far worse conditions.

The only difference now is that you loved and were once loved by are the ones who’ve left you here. Everything’s automated, by this point, so food comes without any human contact, and the only sounds are the hissing and crackling of the lava.

 _You get food! You get books! You have room to stretch your legs and water to drink! You even have a plan to escape eventually, so the situation is much, much different than_ before. You know how to deal with this—breathing exercises, meditation, brushing your hands down your arms and body to simulate contact.

But some seams are splitting, because the lava is beginning to sound like whispers, and memories you thought you’d buried are surging back in your waking thoughts. And you should be growing more tired from isolation but it’s a slow, poisonous, bitter anger that’s simmering through your body, getting stronger each day. The artificial fatigue weighs you down, yes, but in its place grows something ugly.

 _They did this to you, they left you here and hardly thought twice, they forgot you and you would_ never _forget them, and yes, you’re a monster, yes, might deserve this but_ so do they _for all the death and the hurt and the screaming and the lies and stealing that they’ve done to your world that you worked so hard to get and share—_

This is why attachments are horrible and why they hurt—they will inevitably leave you for your flaws or they will be weaponized against you.

The fury makes you fantasize awful things that only bring guilt, not satisfaction, in the aftermath. Revenge is an unproductive concept but _End_ it’s tempting some days, especially during the scarce visits where they look at you from the netherite wall with familiar eyes—eyes that look at you like you’re a monster, like you’re disgusting. (This time around it’s true, you guess. A year ago you would never have fantasized about putting an axe through Quackity’s smug mouth.) 

***

Ranboo comes. You talk.

***

Nineteen days.

_“Dream?”_

You freeze. It’s—you know that voice. That impossible, warm voice.

_“Dream, I missed you.”_

You cover your mouth, squeezing your eyes shut. It sounds like it’s coming from the entrance, but the lava is still hissing.

_“Will you stay longer this time?”_

Slowly, slowly, heart torn between longing and horror, you open your eyes.

There’s no one there. Of course there’s not.

***

It’s twenty-one days, three weeks, when you let yourself call out to Sam.

***

“The isolated cell was supposed to be a temporary thing, Sam,” you’d said to him on day five, and he’d replied:

“You’re too dangerous of a prisoner for any other cell. You built it for the most dangerous people on the server, didn’t you?”

You argued—“We built the other cells so people could _walk around,_ Sam, because the prison was supposed to be _humane_ and safe and just a temporary sentence for people who broke the rules, not—"

“Try to manipulate me again and your rations are cut.”

His voice had been so cold and sharp, so unlike Sam. Surprise and reactionary fear shut you up, and Sam was gone before you could open your mouth again.

***

And at twenty-one days, Sam comes, surprisingly. You immediately launch into your argument.

“Put chains on me, whatever you need, just take me to the normal cells for a day or so, please. I’ll comply with whatever security measures you need to take—just.” Your teeth snap shut. You’re not going to beg.

“Are you trying to give _me_ orders,” Sam says flatly.

“It’s a—request. I can’t move, and it’s so hot.” You tap the obsidian floor, uncomfortably warm from layers of lava. “I—legitimately,” you huff a laugh, “I might go insane if I can’t move around.”

“Like Tommy went insane? Like how you drove him to the brink?” Sam’s hands flex on the trident. 

“I—” The quick turn-around trips up your sluggish brain. “I let him move around. People were free to visit him. He wasn’t ever in danger,” you defend.

“What a coincidence. People are free to visit you too, but they’re not.” He slams the trident on the ground—the vibration passes under your fingers—and stalks forward. “Do you think I can’t tell how different he was before and after? You think he hasn’t said what you _did_ to him in exile? You manipulated him, his emotions, burned his things, and then _you were going to kill him and Tubbo knowing they might be on their last lives._ ”

The trident presses into your shoulder.

“With how Tommy looked, he wouldn’t have survived another regeneration.”

You’re not going to win this if Sam concentrates on Tommy, but there’s really no way to divert the attention from that topic with it coming off as condescending or dismissive.

“I did go too far,” you say, softer, sincerity in your tone. Or should it be defeat? “That’s why I’m in here. I know that. Sam…”

“You are _never_ leaving this cell, Dream. Get that through your head.” The trident suddenly presses harder into your chest. Sam looks down with disgust in his eyes. “I—and a lot of other people on this server—won’t hesitate to kill you if you leave this prison. By keeping you here, I’m keeping you safe and everyone else safe from _you_.”

It doesn’t hurt, it _doesn’t hurt,_ because you saw this coming already. “And I get that, Sam—you can do whatever you want for security, things I don’t know about, but _please_ let me walk around a bit.” Alright, you’re begging. You swallow. “Please, Sam, I’m hearing things—and I, I, my head, I could actually go—I can’t. _Please._ ”

Sam turns, backlit by lava, and burns any further words from your throat with: “Good.” 

***

It’s been twenty-six days and you’re starving.

The prison gives you enough food, of course, if you’re behaving—it both was and wasn’t designed to be a slow death, metaphorically—but you’ve never eaten what everyone else eats and you don’t want to show that now.

Raw potatoes give you more energy than cooked potatoes, but you need something rawer, and you’re _not_ about to ask Sam for raw meat. You’re not that kind of monster. Can you imagine how they’d see you, eating bloody chunks with your fingers in a cell?

***

Something’s wrong with Sam.

Sam comes anytime you do something remotely suspicious, so he’s the most frequent visitor. You need to see people to break the monotony since you’ve given up hope of going to a normal cell, so you throw little fits, changing it up when you get bored—tossing your clock into lava, burning your forearms, refusing to speak.

Sam is no longer Sam—he’s the Warden, and he’s as meticulous and relentless at that job as he would be with any redstone project. He’s harsh and cold and furious and paranoid in turns. You taste it in the air when he visits, even when he's silently bandaging your forearms. He’s dangerous—he’s realizing the power he has over every aspect of you, and he’s realizing that no one sees what he could do to you. Power changes people.

He _likes_ the power he has over you, doesn’t he? He could do anything to you in here.

No one else comes.

And he comes in one day, when you’ve tossed too many things in lava, and he smells like burnt flesh. At first, horror churns your stomach because you’re _hungry_ and _does he smell like a meal?_ But then you realize you recognize the scent—it’s dead leaves under layers of autumn, it’s decay, and it’s exactly as Bad smelled those weeks ago.

***

Twenty-eight.

The impossible voice visits speaks again, and you _shouldn’t_ want this, because it’s in your head and this is psychosis, but _End_ you’ve missed hearing it—

_“What new stories do you have to tell us this time, Dream?”_

How long before the voices turn into visual hallucinations? How long before memories and reality mix? You know how the mind eats itself in isolation, if it’s too long, but knowing what’s happening only slows the process.

_“Do you have any of those yellow apples? Those were really good!”_

It’s easy to remember what you replied. “You only love me for the food,” you mouth back, a little smile wobbling. 

A young, brown-haired boy appears in the corner of your eye, stopping your heart with each glimpse.

***

Thirty-eight days. No one has asked you to bring the dead to life.

They locked you away and forgot about you.

It’s been thirty-eight days and you’re furious again for a brief flare. In a fit, you scream with horrible, grating sounds at the echoing walls, hearing the sound waves bounce back at your face.

The teeth growing from your knuckles haven’t been filed, barely peeking through the fingerless gloves, and you rake them down the obsidian. 

You scratch over, and over, and over, until it breaks the teeth tips into bits and pieces bounce off the floor.

When you tire, your hands are bloody and there are gashes in the obsidian. There’s a high-pitched, tinny sound that exists outside of your head.

It’s an alarm. The slashes in the wall were enough to summon the warden.

***

“Sam.”

Sam refuses to say a word, attaching cuffs to your wrists and securing you to the far wall. He replaces the obsidian block while you watch him.

“It was actually an accident, if you can believe that,” you say with some humor, voice rough from disuse.

The warden doesn’t respond. He leaves the cuffs on as he takes your hands to inspect them. Sam efficiently wipes away the blood and bandages the worst cuts. Your hands shake at the contact. 

“Sam,” you try again, but he leaves. You didn’t really expect much else, but something cold and horrible pushes you down to the ground when he’s gone.

***

You slash the walls again.

They want to break you down and defang you—and you know that, it’s why Sam put you in the Box and took away all the enrichment activities that should have been included—and you can fake it, you suppose, but your pride says otherwise. They won’t break you down into an obedient husk. You’ve done this before.

Sam chains you down for three days and thoroughly scours the prison for flaws. It’s overkill but part of you is gratified at the caution and wariness. At least you're still some sort of threat. Rations are cut. Sam says he’s prohibited visitors for bad behavior.

It’s not like people are lining up. Well worth it to feel Sam’s hands on you. 

***

So you have a mouth with thin teeth in your midriff, and the baggy hoodie does a great job of hiding it. You can eat with either one, but the stomach-mouth is bigger and can handle bigger chunks. Those teeth have also not been filed recently, like the ones on your hands, and the teeth rub and press uncomfortably when you bend a certain way.

It’s a good thing no one can see you here, behind the lava veil, as you slip torn pieces of paper underneath your hoodie. It would look really weird.

You chew up the pages into malleable pieces, then you roll it into thin ropes and twine it through your teeth to dry.

It means you have to eat raw potatoes with your smaller mouth, where you can actually smell it—which is _not_ a scent you want stuck under your nose—but all plans have sacrifices, you suppose.

***

It’s been forty-two days and they’ve forgotten you, haven’t they. Is this better or worse than being taunted and tortured in a cell?

Don’t be stupid, of course this is better. You chose this.

***

_“Hey, sweetheart.”_ The deep voice is directed to the boy. _“What are you working on today?”_

_“Poultice. I need to stock up dried herbs, I think! This new book is fantastic—it has so many new remedies! Will you help me find them today?”_

“Of course,” you say. “Cors, do you want to come too? We can make a family outing.”

 _“A family outing?”_ the voice repeats with some amusement. _“Should I bring a picnic?”_

_“Yes, yes!”_

Their faces are vivid on your eyelids as you wake. No tears, no sobs, just heavy breathing and shaking.

You can’t do this.

***

The breaking point is when you wake up and you don’t know what day it is or what time it is or if you’re in a dirt cell with bars or an obsidian box. You don’t remember closing your eyes. You don’t remember moving to this corner. 

Grabbing the book lying by your head, you flip it to the tally page. You stare at your book. You don’t know how many days it’s been. 52? 53?

You don’t know.

You don’t know.

You’re the only thing you can control in here and you can’t control yourself.

No breath. Chest stuck.

You’re not _weak._ You’re not back _there._

You can’t breathe.

You wake up, and you don’t remember moving.

***

You twist the paper-ropes into stronger ones, day by day. You file the teeth-claws on your hands to a sharp point.

***

It’s been over seventy days, and your head and eye sockets ache and pulse each time you open your eyes. You’re not meant to sleep like this. Is it sleep? The dreams are so vivid. The voices in the lava are more distinct.

***

You’re so _hungry._ Your stomach is a hollow maw with scraping teeth. It already was but now it feels like it.

_“Dream, please don’t cook the beets—I’ll do it. You’re too impatient and it doesn’t cook through.”_

“But I can do the meat?” you whisper playfully, hoarsely.

_“As long as it’s not pink.”_

“Of course not,” you say to the ceiling. “I wouldn’t risk you getting sick.” 

The memories hurt so much—it’s like another maw in your midriff. But it’s been so long since you’ve heard their voices. It’s been so long since you’ve allowed yourself to even think of them. 

***

Your thoughts are slow and static—you can’t concentrate. This is awful. Why did you ever choose this? Were they ever worth it?

There’s peace on the server, as your few visitors have indicated. A fragile peace, but you know how well a common enemy can unite people. It’s easier to push all blame onto one than to distribute it fairly to everyone.

So this peace—the first one in _years—_ should last a bit longer.

But were they even worth it? You thought so. But no one has asked you to bring the dead to life. No one’s been here at all in so, so long. They dropped you so quickly. You didn’t _need_ concern, because you were meant to protect them, control them so they wouldn’t kill each other, but not one of them had asked with sincerity— _why are you doing this? Are you okay?_

They just looked at you with _monster_ and _dirty_ behind their eyes and for a flash you _hate them all—_

Longing for a deep, warm voice and a bright smile washes through you.

 _They_ had been worth it. They’d loved you through everything. They’d known far more of you and loved you anyway.

They deserve the gift of life far more, a bitter little voice whispers.

***

You eat, and stretch, and sit down. The paper-ropes go on the floor, along with crumpled paper as kindling. Teeth-claws pressed together, you scrape furiously. Your hands are so, so heavy.

A spark.

A portal.

You’re surrounded by obsidian, after all. The sensors behind the stone don’t detect the portal ignition, so no alarms are triggered.

Looking around the sparse area where you’d spent the last near-year, there’s nothing to take save the book that served as a flawed timekeeper.

You’d like to break the clock, though.

The clock has some redstone in the center. You crack open the iron case to expose the small bead inside. A strange urge to eat it. _Screw it—_ you eat it, enjoying the acrid-dust taste.

Closing your eyes, you pass through the portal to the prison’s nether-portal. The floor is built with sensors to alert Sam when someone passes through, and the walls are heavily lined with obsidian over a lava lake. In addition to the mining fatigue, there’s not enough time to break the stone to get out—and nowhere to go in the nether if you _did_ get out.

You carefully hoist yourself onto the top of the obsidian of the nether-portal to wait out the mining fatigue affect without triggering any alarms.

There’s legitimately no way to go any further than this.

Every stone, top to bottom, surrounding the nether-portal is alarmed with redstone. You could _maybe_ scratch with your claws hard enough to crack the obsidian, but it would take an obscenely long amount of time even without the artificial fatigue. By the time you could mine _just one_ block from the surrounding layers, Sam will have arrived.

The fatigue gradually washes off over the minutes, and it feels like you can finally breathe again. You give yourself a few minutes to rest.

Time to summon Sam. 

***

In the prison, the first day, they’d forced you to empty your enderchest. For security purposes.

You’d refused, at first, saying that you couldn’t get to it anyway in a cell—and then Sam had slammed his trident on the obsidian and made the rapidly aging threat—“If you don’t, I’ll take your last life.”

So you did. You pulled out enough to be plausible, leaving a few items for later.

And there was a sword at your throat. “I know that’s not all of it.”

“Sam—”

“Drop it.”

They’d expect you to try to pull something, hide something, so you’d tried to make it plausible: “Look at how much there is, Sam; there’s not more room in an enderchest for—”

The sword tip had angled down to your unarmored chest, digging in.

“Drop your items.”

“Sam— _aaeegh.”_ You’d snapped your mouth closed, surprised at the tip cutting through the already bloody rip in your hoodie. Sam’s sword drove in a little further. “Okay, okay, okay—"

You dropped the golden apples, a book of coded notes, and your second-best chestplate, but Sam’s sword didn’t leave. Blood dripped down your chest, draining health, bringing you closer to death. “That’s all, I swear! There’s nothing else! Sam—that’s personal stuff, I didn’t want it stolen, that’s why—”

“I don’t believe you. Drop the rest, Dream.”

The sword drove further in, blood welling.

“I swear, I swear, that’s it—” you’d said frantically. After all this, after all the events of that day, Sam might have actually followed through on the threat, you’d smelled it in his acrid sweat, and he had no one he wanted to bring back to life. “I swear, End, Sam, don’t—"

The pain forced you to your knees.

“See, there’s nothing you can swear on that we can believe. So drop everything.”

“I’m on my last life, Sam!” A lie, but your body had ached and burned with the bone-deep pain of two regenerations in a single day—in a single _minute_. You’d sworn aloud at the pain of that and the sword, pathetic tears clogging your throat slightly. The mask, at least, kept them from being seen. “End, dammit, Sam, there’s nothing else, I swear that’s all of it!”

He’d wanted to push you to your furthest extremes, wring every item and bit of honesty out your lying mouth. He’d only believed you because you were begging for your life.

The pathetic show had let you keep a few items, though.

***

Sam’s reaction time is impressive. Less than a minute passes before Sam, his seven-foot height, and his glittering netherite armor emerge from the portal.

You drop from the portal and sink your claws into the neck opening in his armor.

Again, his reaction time is impressive. He grabs the scruff of your hood like a kitten and throws you to the side. As you twist and land, you see him press a hand to his neck, staunching the blood, and grasp at his inventory for a healing item.

Before he can use a potion, you launch yourself at him. He’s forced to jab out one-handed with his trident. You twist and grab a prong, cutting your hand. You kick out at his thigh, yanking the trident from his single-handed grip, rolling on the ground. Immediately you dive to avoid a loaded crossbow, then a netherite axe is coming for your head. 

Sam’s used the few seconds of reprieve to throw a healing potion on his throat. “Stand down or I kill you,” he rasps, pushing against your trident with the axe. 

“That’s the idea!” you laugh. Your voice also sounds like it’s just been cut.

One hit and you’re dead. One hit on Sam and his armor might scratch.

This is the most exciting it’s been for _months._

You grab his hand with yours, sinking in your hand-teeth into the axe hand. Your one-handed grip costs you as Sam’s superior height forces the trident to the ground and you have to awkwardly twist to avoid it. The axe bites into your side, lighting fire down your torso. Sam grunts at the pain of a punctured hand

You press in close. There’s only one vulnerable spot in netherite armor.

Knocking his axe aside with your trident, you use the second to rip off your mask. For just a moment in Sam’s furiously determined face, his eyes meet yours and widen.

—and you sink your teeth into his throat.

He makes a horrible sucking sound. One of your hands keeps his axe-arm pinned as you both collapse to the ground.

His other hand manifests a pickaxe, and you barely manage to block it enough so it doesn’t skewer you. As it is—you stiffen as the tip pierces above your hip—and you rip your teeth back.

Now, it’s you and Sam, you above, _finally in control,_ and Sam bleeding out. Now he’s looking at you, eye to eye, no mask, as blood drips down your mouth and neck. He’s seen you. You look like a proper monster.

This will be his first death in months, by your calculation. He should regenerate just fine, if painfully.

Dying by suffocation and blood loss isn’t the best way to go, so you scrabble for the hilt of the trident while you still pin him, fingers barely reaching—and you thrust the prongs into his heart.

“Sorry, Sam,” you say, and you’re not sure if you’re sincere or not.

His wide-eyed expression remains etched in your mind as you thud to the ground.

There’s blood in your teeth. It tastes like gunpowder.

_[Awesamdude was slain by Dream.]_

Dumbly, you look at the ground. You’d assumed that if you won this impossible fight you could take Sam’s weapons and cut through the obsidian.

But all of his armor and weapons are gone. The warden had enchanted them all with curse of vanishing.

 _The madman—_ he’d just lost everything to spite you.

All that’s left are some potions and Sam’s master key. Fat lot of good the master key can do in the nether-portal.

But—of the potions, there’s a fire resistance.

You greedily chug all of the potions you can, feeling strength seep back into your body and the blood wash from your teeth. The punctures Sam’s trident and pickaxe left on you stitches itself together. Your mask is carefully replaced and tied.

 _No idea where this will take me,_ you think, looking at the portal. All portals in the prison are linked to this one nether-portal, so it’s impossible to tell which one you’ll exit through. Judging by how fast Sam had arrived at the prison—and how there have _never been any guards other than Sam at the prison—_ you’re fairly certain that there isn’t anyone on the other side of wherever the portal spits you out.

It spits you back into your cell. 

***

The next few minutes pass by like a fever dream, like maybe you’ve never left the prison and you’ll wake up back inside your cell, cheek pressed to heated obsidian.

Swimming through lava. Putting the master key in your stomach to keep it from burning. Dashing through the dark halls of the prison. Communicator buzzing with the frantic plans of your friends to catch you. ( _Would Sapnap—_?) Finding an enderchest where you remembered the locker would be and retrieving your incomplete set of backup armor.

Pulling out _food—real food—_ for the first time in _so long—_ juice of gold-crusted apples on your lips, washing away the gunpowder taste in your teeth, as you dash toward the prison entrance portal.

Fear and thrill. 

You sprint through the halls. People will have seen the death message.

***

Ninety-two days and change (and unaccounted hours), and you’re escaping the prison.

As you exit the main portal, the colors and sensations assault your senses. So much _color—_ green fields, red-orange dusk sky, spruce wood beams, distant flags—after lava and black. Your body shakes from the feel of wind.

Hell, you don’t even have shoes. The ground is deliciously cool under your rough feet.

Sliding a hand under your mask, you stifle giddy hiccups.

It’s been, what—three minutes? Four?—since Sam’s message broadcasted. That’s plenty of time for people to gather. Sam is probably on his way with backup gear. There’s no time to breakdown.

The ground sways and contracts oddly under your feet as you run. You stumble, miscalculating distances as your body reaccustoms to the rhythm of the chase.

Exiting the portal, you’re met with three people sprinting at you from a distance.

Your enderchest had a few pearls that your tears had let stay, so you can make distance—but of course, they also have some.

It all devolves into a blurry whirl of chase and shouts and blood as the night falls. You’ve always been good at running, and you manage to stay ahead of your pursuers, weaving and dodging and fighting and using the land to your advantage.

Laughter erupts from your mouth. 

You gut a few people with your hand-teeth, and honestly, at the moment you don’t know or really care if they’re on their third life or not. If they’re risking it, they’re risking it. If they think that your imprisonment is worth their last life, that’s their decision.

Hours blur.

Voices blur.

The cuts on your feet and shoulder and body throb together under the rhythm of the chase.

The sun rises.

***

It’s been one day.

You’re near-delirious with the rush of freedom, and your body staggers forward from its own weight, but you can’t stop now. You’ve gone so far, and you need to go further to be safe. 

Humans are frail, and afraid because of it, and vicious for that. They’ll come for you, no doubt.

You aren’t human, and you have far more than three lives.

But you’ve had three homes—that _place_ , those voices, and this server—and it seems that each of their deaths will stay. This last home, this world you loved and made and shared, is dead. The third death. One of your own making. 

Then again, you do know how to raise the dead. 

**Author's Note:**

> i appreciate every comment whether it's a <3 or a paragraph. thanks for bringing a bright spot to my day!


End file.
